Geringas Tunes-Up Series for DreamWorks, Netflix

Composer and songwriter Alex Geringas has found an animated sound for two television series from DreamWorks Animation for Netflix — Home: Adventuresof Tip & Oh and Trolls: The Beat Goes On!, both adapted from feature films.

For Home: Adventures of Tip & Oh the Moscow-born, Hamburg-raised actor-turned composer was tasked with creating music that could stand toe-to-toe with hits written or sung by Rihanna and Jennifer Lopez, who lent voice to the 2015 feature. His dance epic “Ooga Boo,” co-written by Todd Garfield, was performed by someone herself no stranger to chart-topping: Cher, marking her first release since the 2013 studio album Closer To the Truth.

“I knew that she is a powerhouse of a singer because I have seen her perform live, and I started writing the melodies with her in mind,” says Geringas, who has lived in Los Angeles since 2011. “It was quite a task to find the right demo singer to present the song to her,” he added, noting his usual demo crew “sounded way too young” for Cher’s smokey contralto. “I decided to sing the demo myself so she could quickly understand that she was to create her own phrasing rather than copy another woman. And she did hell of a job! I am so proud of this one.”

The eponymous episode, “Chercophonie” features the 71-year-old chanteuse as a alien version of herself. It received a nomination for outstanding music achievement in a television/broadcast production for the 44th Annual Annie Awards competition, which ceremony takes place Feb. 4 at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

One of two original songs Cher performed for the series, “Ooga Boo” is a dance track with a message of self-empowerment. The tune was produced by Geringas, who has conquered the international pop charts, with 18 of his compositions hitting No. 1 on various charts worldwide in countries including Germany, Japan and South Korea.

Geringas also scored the upcoming Dreamworks Animation film-turned-Netflix original series, Trolls:The Beat Goes On!, which premiered Jan. 19. Picking up where the film left off, the show is a new chapter in the upbeat adventure of the inhabitants of Troll Village as they keep the party going. “I worked very closely with Dreamworks Animation TV Music head Alexandra Nickson and executive producer Matt Beans to create a unique, poppy sound palette with big, orchestral fairy tones. I love to combine pop and symphonic music so this was right up my alley.” Beans made a name for himself with Robot Chicken, and the series features voice talent Skylar Astin (Pitch Perfect) and Amanda Leighton (This Is Us, The Fosters) .

Music from season one of Trolls: The Beat Goes On! is available on iTunes, Amazonand Google Play. Watch the trailer here.

Geringas was an actor, playwright and stage director who studied composing in Germany, where he wrote songs for Deutsche artists including No Angels, Sarah Connor and Christina Stürmer, and also had hits with Japan’s Kumi Koda and South Korea’s Got7. He kicked off his film career with the country’s popular Hanni & Nanni trilogy. In 2015 he scored the travelogue comedy I’m Off Then, a Warner Bros. live action release that became one of the most successful Germany films of that year. His bigscreen credits include Woody Woodpecker, Ice Age, The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature, The LEGO Ninjago Movie and Pitch Perfect 3, for which he produced the score.

Geringas earned a 2015 Daytime Emmy nomination for the Netflix series All Hail King Julien for the song “Who’s Da King?” He wrote eight original songs performed by Kelly Clarkson and Ben Schwartz for the special Home for the Holidays and is currently at work conjuring more future Christmas classics for Dimension Films’ The War With Grandpa, starring Robert De Niro.

As if anything could be more fun than writing Christmas tunes! But Geringas says there is: working with a living legend. “First of all I am a huge Robert De Niro fan,” he confesses. But riffing on the holidays is also pretty rad. “I have written a lot of Christmas songs in my career, including with Mike Himelstein for DreamWorks Penguins of Madagascar and with Alex Zamm for some of his Hallmark movies. I really enjoy the woodwind runs! They never seem to end. And you get to use sleigh bells. My assistant actually bought me some great sleigh bells last Christmas and I play them on two songs in The War with Grandpa.“